The history of body art started with prehistoric humans. In the prehistoric era, belief in a soul, guarded by the spirit of another creature, inspired pictures of that creature on the body. The spirit of that creature guarded, gave safety, and led the soul down the path of life. Body art was a way to keep the spirit close, always.

Throughout time, body art kept its position as a spiritual expression, and it also became an expression of social importance. Native American and African tribes used tattoos and body piercing to express beliefs and stature in society. Chiefs, for instance, had different body markings than an ordinary hunter or any other tribe member. Where a chief may have had a tattoo that symbolized power or resembled a god, a hunter might have had a tattoo that resembled a buffalo or some game he hunted. Piercings and tattoos were signs of accomplishment and membership.

Certain tattoos stood for positions in the community, and in some cases, every member had some type of body marking that indicated their status. For ceremonies, the elite class donned the trappings of their rank and power. Women in the tribes received a special marking for marriage, to signify they were a spouse. The chief had more tattoos and more piercings because of his stature in the tribe, and the older members of the tribe had more because of age. In many cases, the markings had high, religious significance.

As time progressed further, body art stayed as an expression of beliefs, but the beliefs and reasons for body art strayed from religion and community stature. Some Americans believe that
body art grew in popularity in the 1960s as a revolt against the formalism of society. Along with that theory, some “flower children” used bodyart to demonstrate the incompleteness of all art. Some got tattoos to express love for another person, orto state a belief about an issue facing society. A quote in an article by Deborah Irmas states that “Tattooing has become an expression of art, a far cry from the times when it was viewed as a ritual of passage in ancient cultures”. Some men, however, got tattoos to demonstrate membership in a gang or group, much like the Native American and African tribes.

Body art is still used in ancient practices and to show status rankings in tribes like the Surma of Ethiopia. For example, in the Surma tribe, young boys still use lip plates. Lip plates are used to stretch the lips and indicate how many cattle a man’s family will receive from his bride’s family when they are married. The tattoos that women receive when they are married include symbols of prosperity and well-being.

Body art has lasted throughout history and is still important in society. The tribes of Africa keep old traditions alive by continuing to use body art, and Americans use body art to identify themselves and as a form of individuality. In a sense, as society has grown and changed, so has body art.

Chopper Tattoo is a tattoo design website with a database of just under 4000 tattoo’s. It’s sole purpose is to help you choose a design for your next tattoo.

You can download and print as many designs as you like, and can combine different designs to make your own custom tattoo.

There are many different tattoo categories to choose from in the membership area of Chopper Tattoo. Once you’ve found a design you like, simply select it and you can print it out to take to the tattoo parlor of your choosing.

Chopper Tattoo claims that their database of tattoo designs is updated regularly, but I’ll have to take their word for that since I only purchased a one month membership, and there were no updates with that time frame.

Chopper Tattoo Membership Costs

Chopper Tattoo memberships are priced reasonably. One of the things that I liked about Chopper Tattoo was it’s flexible membership choices. You have the following membership choices when joining Chopper Tattoo:

1 Month – $19.95
2 Months – $24.95
Lifetime – $34
Obviously if you are only planning on getting one tattoo in your lifetime the 1 month membership makes sense. For those of you that think you will get multiple tattoo’s I’d recommend dishing out the extra $14 for the lifetime membership.

What I liked About Chopper Tattoo

Initially I was impressed with the ease of use of the members area of the website. It’s a really simple layout, and you don’t have to be a computer nerd to find your tattoo design quickly.

The selection of tattoo designs Chopper Tattoo has is also impressive. At the time of this review they had about 3800 designs in a wide variety of categories (to see the categories, visit their website).

What I Disliked About Chopper Tattoo
What I really disliked about Chopper Tattoo was the fact that the tattoo
category pages had big horizontal banner ads on each side of it. This might
not be an issue to everyone, but it really annoyed me. When I pay for a
site membership I don’t expect cheap looking banner ads. This may not even
be an issue to some, but it certainly was something that I didn’t like
personally.

Chopper Tattoo “Bonuses”
Chopper Tattoo throws in the following three “bonuses” with your membership:

1) Games – In case you get sick of searching for a tattoo design there is a section with eight games that you can play.
2) Music Downloads – Apparently along with your membership to Chopper Tattoo, you also have free access to MP3Suite.com. I’m not familiar with this site, but it does appear to have free MP3 downloads.
3) Tattoo Lettering – This is just a link to a website with various fonts. This could be helpful if you are looking for letters in your tattoo’s, but these free font sites are all over Google if you search.

Final Thoughts on Chopper Tattoo
You my have read some hyped reviews about Chopper Tattoo lately. In my opinion, this is because Chopper Tattoo is at the top of the Clickbank charts and offers a high affiliate payout. For this reason, everyone is trying to promote it and make it look amazing.

And Don’t get me wrong… Chopper Tattoo is good. It offers 3800 tattoo designs and a few random bonuses. It doesn’t under deliver, it just simply doesn’t offer the value of Tattoo Me Now.